Bless the Child
by Lady Razorsharp
Summary: Annie talks about her life in the Red Dragon syndicate. Set before "Ballad of Fallen Angels."


DISCLAIMER: I don't own Cowboy Bebop; Sunrise Inc. does. I do, however, own this original story. 

AN: My take on Annie's story up until "Ballad of Fallen Angels." Forgive the rambly nature of this story; Annie switches from talking to us to talking to Spike at the end. I hope it becomes clear why that is so…

Bless the Child

By the Lady Razorsharp

I grieve for you

You leave me

So hard to move on

Still loving what's gone

Life carries on and on…

--Peter Gabriel

The Syndicate isn't the best place for a kid to grow up, but it does have its merits, I suppose. I really can't talk; I managed to land in the Syndicate as a teenage hellion. It beat wandering the streets looking for people to pickpocket. It beat sleeping in dank alleyways, trying to fend off the drunken bums in the middle of the night. It beat getting beat on at home, and it beat the crummy foster homes they tried to put me in.

I wasn't pretty enough to be a hooker, so I became a thief. One day I tried to pick the pocket of a well-dressed young guy. He was a short little squirt, about my height or maybe a little taller, so I thought hey, there's an easy target. I reached for the pocket of his long black coat, but the guy did some kung-fu move, and next thing I knew I was flat on my back in the dirt. Shocked the hell out of me, that's for sure.

The guy--looking back, I realize he wasn't much older than me, eighteen or twenty at the oldest --looked into my eyes and did the most amazing thing. He smiled. And it was a real smile, I could tell by the way his eyes crinkled in the corners. He helped me up and asked me if I was hungry.

Hungry? Is Mars red? I couldn't remember the last time I'd eaten something that wasn't halfway rancid or that didn't have mold on it.

I tagged along after him, telling myself it was just curiosity. I kept telling myself that I was just looking for the right time to lift his wallet, then I'd take off down the street, disappearing into the shadows. My stomach managed to talk some sense into me, though, and I ended up following this kid to the front doors of the tallest building I'd ever seen in my life. There was a huge, swirling dragon etched on the glass doors, and my heart jumped into my throat. I'd seen a crude version of that symbol painted by taggers around Tharsis City, warning us small fries away from big-boy business. This kid was a gangster! _Just stay cool, Annie,_ said my inner voice, and I shoved my hands in my pockets, trying to act like I owned the place.

From the moment I stepped inside the headquarters of the Red Dragon Syndicate, however, I knew that act would fail miserably. My dirty face, my ratty clothes, my stringy hair--all of it was like a smudge on the pristine finish of the granite walls. Were my tattered sneakers really leaving muddy footprints on red velvet carpet? Everywhere I looked, I saw men in suits, men with slanted, luminous eyes, men with cruel, thin mouths, with long, elegant hands. I fell in love with them, buzzing on air that reeked of expensive incense. My eyes were dazzled with the gilt furnishings, the urns full of potted palms and huge vases of exotic lilies.

My young tour guide led me to the warm bustle of a gleaming kitchen, deep inside the monolith. My fingers left grubby prints on the stainless steel countertops, and the chef de cuisine looked at the young gangster with something akin to horror.

"But…Yenrai-san!" the chef protested, moving farther away from me as I barked out a cough. "She'll contaminate my kitchen!"

"Very well then," said young master Yenrai--a person of some influence from what I could gather--said evenly. "We'll put her in the dining room. But first--" he turned to me and fixed me with his dark, dark eyes. "What would you like to eat, Miss--?"

"Anastasia," I supplied, nearly fainting when a sous chef walked by. The steaming pot in his hands trailed the heavenly smell of beef stew like a banner. "Everyone just calls me Annie," I added, trying not to drool.

"Annie," Yenrai repeated with a gentle smile. "Master Chef is very talented. I'm sure he'd be glad to have you put him to the test." He glanced at the chef, who had blanched nearly as white as his tall paper hat.

"Oh, of course," Master Chef muttered. I could almost see him beginning to sweat. "What is Mademoiselle's wish?"

"Steak and ice cream," I blurted. Those were the most extravagant things I could think of. Those things were the stuff of dreams, when the norm was a bowl of cold cereal, or a smack upside the head.

"How would Mademoiselle like her steak cooked?"

I stared at the chef; the conversation had just gone over my head. "Umm, on a stove?"

Chuckling, my young friend came to my rescue. "Medium rare, I would think,"Yenrai said, "and strawberry ice cream." He looked at me for a moment. "Yes. Definitely strawberry, with chocolate sauce."

When we entered the dining room, I saw a single place set with silver, china and crystal. The table was so long that I couldn't see the other end as it stretched away into the darkness. I must have let out a gasp of surprise, because Yenrai grinned at me. 

"We only use this room when we have important guests," he explained. "And I would say that you definitely fit that category."

I glanced at him. What was he trying to pull? "The incense is getting to you," I shot back.

He smiled, but didn't say anything. He pulled out my chair, made sure I was comfortable, then sat at my right hand for the duration.

That night, I ate like there was no tomorrow. As far as I knew, there WAS no tomorrow, only tonight, and then I'd be back on the streets again before dawn. _Same old shit, different day, right?_ I'd have to make the most of young Mr. Yenrai's generosity and just be glad that those men in the lobby hadn't shot me for trying to pickpocket one of their own.

I'd gone through three porterhouse steaks and two bowls of strawberry gelato when I finally put down my spoon. Yenrai--whose given name was Mao, he told me, as I stuffed my face--put down his coffee cup and smiled at me. He looked like he'd enjoyed watching me scarf down more protein than I'd probably had in all my sixteen years. "You're full, eh?"

I let out a very unladylike belch. "Yeah. A full stomach helps keep you warm when you're trying to sleep on wet grass. That is, if the ISSP doesn't chase you out of the park for loitering."

What Mao said next nearly made me fall out of my chair. "Well, Annie, you don't have to worry about that anymore, if you don't want to."

"Huh?" What was he driving at? If he thought I was going to slobber all over him with gratitude, he had another thing coming--most likely, a knuckle sandwich or a kick in the balls. If he wanted to take me in and feed me, that was one thing. If he wanted a piece of ass in return, well, he was going to have a rude awakening.

"If you worked for us, you'd never go hungry," he said gently, taking my hand and rubbing away the dirt with his thumbs. "You'd have a roof over your head, pockets full of money, nice clothes to wear. You could go to school."

"Now, waitaminute," I frowned at him, taking my hand back. "No one said anything about school. I don't need to go to school. All I need is to know how to filch a wallet and jimmy locks. It's kept me in eats before." How dare he insult my talents! I was genuinely offended.

"All right, Annie," he said, his eyes going cold. "I'll let you back out into the night, if that's what you want. You can go back to trying to turn that cough into pneumonia on the wet grass. You can go back to the bums and the hookers and the pimps." He fiddled with the fragile china cup. "One of these days, Annie, you're going to jump the wrong person. Someone's going to have a gun or a knife to defend themselves when you try to rob them. Some gang of young punks is going to think they can have a good time with a girl like you." He raised those cold, cold eyes to me, and I shivered. "Is that what you want? To someday get caught by the ISSP and spend the rest of your life in some rat-infested prison? To someday be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and be dumped into some pit under a nameless headstone?" He was standing over me now, tall and terrible even at his height, the flickering candelabra painting his tanned face with eerie shadows. "Tell me, Annie. Is that what you want?"

I actually thought about pushing my chair back and walking out of there--for maybe half a second. I'd seen those things happen, but I'd never thought about them happening to me until that moment. "No," I answered.

Mao's eyes warmed again, and he held out his hand. "Good. Come with me."

My Pa had been a wart on society, but he hadn't sired a fool. I took Mao's hand and said goodbye to the streets, and hello to a life that was more wonderful, more exciting, richer and harder and scarier and more terrifying than I ever could have imagined.

Devon Spiegel was Mao's best friend. Devon was a tall scarecrow of a kid, with legs and arms that went on for miles. His dark brown eyes were like the others' I'd seen in the lobby that first day, slanted just the barest amount at the corners. Though he was only twenty, he had salt and pepper hair, and he kept it slicked back with copious amounts of styling gel. I asked him once where he'd gotten such a lame hairstyle, and he told me he'd seen it on TV, from some show about an old singing star. 

Devon's looks might have been on the funky side, but his fighting style was not. Everything was straight down the line, serious and picture-perfect. Even when he'd fallen in love with Mariko--a slender Japanese girl whose doll-like looks belied her deadly marksmanship--Devon never was anything but right on the money when it came to Red Dragon business. 

Maybe I should have spoken up. I'm no fortuneteller, but I could have told Devon right from the beginning that Mariko's ethereal beauty wasn't long for this world. She managed to stay long enough to give Devon a son; Mariko had a will of iron, but the long, arduous labor had turned it to vapor. By the time Steven was born, she was drenched in sweat, her skin as pale as rice paper from blood loss. She was too weak to even hold her son, a squalling tyke with a dusting of greenish hair. Instead, she caressed him with her fever-bright eyes, smiled at us, then closed her eyes and slipped away. 

Devon cried over her for an hour, not letting anyone near him, not even the nurses. Then he dried his tears, kissed Mariko's forehead, and walked out to meet us in the hallway.

I still get chills when I remember the look in his eyes. For that moment, our friend was gone, replaced by a man who'd lost the woman he would have died for.

"I should have gone first," Devon had muttered. "It should have been me." He tipped his head up to the ceiling, as if to catch a glimpse of Mariko's soul hovering overhead. "This is all a bad dream. Any minute now, I'll wake up with her in my arms." He glanced at us, and for an instant, we looked into the face of madness. "Yeah. Just a dream."

It was Devon who'd nicknamed the boy "Spike", after my futile attempt at taming the boy's crop of emerald green cowlicks. The kid had screeched like a banshee after I came at him with the brush, wiggling out of my grip when I was only half done.

"He looks like a little punk!" I yelled, throwing down the brush as Steven ran and hid behind his father's lanky legs.

"Annie, he IS a little punk!" Devon had laughed, swinging Spike up into his arms, tossing him until the boy shrieked with laughter. "Now he even looks the part!"

I wonder if Devon was thinking of Spike that day; that would explain why Devon would have been distracted, off his game just slightly. Maybe it was the fourth anniversary of Mariko's death--Spike's birthday--that held his attention more than the job that day. I hope his last thought was of them, anyway. I still can see Devon, his face full of surprise and shock that he'd been shot in the back, the light in those laughing eyes dying even before he hit the pavement. 

"Devon!" I'd screamed, heedless of the bullets whizzing past me.

Mao grabbed my arm, pulling me away from where Devon lay in a growing pool of blood. "Annie, run!"

We left him there, escaping with our lives and little else. To this day, I don't know where, or if he's buried. We put a marker for him next to Mariko's headstone, but there wasn't any point digging a grave.

I chose this life with both eyes open. Spike was born to it; being a Red Dragon was the only life he'd ever known, so I guess I can't blame Spike for wanting to stay. After I retired from the front line, I still kept in touch with Mao, so I guess I never truly left the Syndicate behind. Hell, my shop was three blocks from Headquarters, and all the gangster kids would come in and get cigarettes. Spike, who turned out to be a beanpole like his father, would hang around and talk, stuffing his pockets with rice candy and Pocky when he thought I wasn't looking. When he got older, he graduated to stealing cigarettes and girly mags.

"Put 'em back!" I'd yell, but he'd just give me that grin--Devon's grin--and I couldn't stay mad at him for long.

One rainy night, Spike banged on the door to the shop after closing time. I was just about ready to leave when I saw him peeking through the blinds, and I let him in. He was drenched, but he didn't seem to mind.

"You're soaking wet, boy!" I cried. "I let you in and now you're dripping all over my floor!"

Either Spike hadn't heard me, or he was ignoring me. "I'm in love, Annie," he said without preamble.

Something in his voice made me quit wrestling with the mop. Instead I went back to him and looked him straight in the face, in those odd eyes of his. The garnet irises were like glowing coals. 

"Don't say such a foolish thing," I snapped. "You're too young to know what love is."

He looked at me, through me, and I was taken back twenty-three years in a split instant. _No, Spike. Don't, please,_ I thought desperately. It was too late; the boy was falling fast.

"She's beautiful, Annie. Tall, blue eyes, great body…and her hair…" Spike's voice trailed off, and he stirred the air with his long, slender hands, as if groping for the right words. "God, Annie, her hair is like--like a river of gold." 

I knew I'd be sorry, but I couldn't help asking. "What's her name?"

"Julia," Spike breathed.

I put the description and the name together, eliciting a picture in my mind of a tall, graceful young woman with sad blue eyes. I remembered, too, whose arm I'd seen her on--Spike's best friend, a shy young man whose swordwork was already legendary. _Vicious. _

I tried dispensing some parental wisdom, not that Spike had ever taken any of it to heart. Why did I think he would start now? "Spike, don't get involved with another man's girl."

Spike's face wasn't quite the mask of insanity his father's had been all those years ago, but it was damned close. "She's an angel, Annie. The one I've waited for." He looked at me for a long moment. "We'll be together forever. I know it."

***

I wished I could shake some sense into you, but it was no use. I tried not to think about it too much. If I did, it made me want to get my gun out of the closet and hunt down whoever would want to hurt you.

I can't afford that kind of feeling. If I did, that would mean that I care about you, you little demon, and caring about someone only gets you hurt when they die a senseless death, gunned down in the prime of their lives.

Then again, I'm probably the closest thing you've got to a mother. Imagine, me, a mother. It boggles the mind. That's why I said I would never have kids; they always end up getting the dirty end of the stick. They're always forgotten, always blamed, always hurt and abandoned…but you, Spike…my Spike…

You knew there was something better out there, and some instinct inside your fuzzy green head told you to go out and look for it. Whether Julia was that better thing is up for discussion. Right now it certainly doesn't seem like it, does it?

The days pass into months, and the months into years. It's been three years since the night that Mao came to the shop to tell me you were dead. You'd been involved in a sting that went bad, he said, but I knew it had something to do with Julia. _You don't mess with what belongs to a Red Dragon_.

"Damnit, Mao, Spike doesn't make those sorts of mistakes!" I'd hissed at him. "We raised him better than that."

"I know," Mao had said heavily, burying his head in his hands. I noticed for the first time that his black hair was thinning, the once-inky strands turning gray. "I still want to check the hospitals. I'm not giving up until I see his body for myself."

We never found you. Now there are two markers next to your mother's, markers with no graves.

Then Julia disappeared without a trace. Vicious was shipped off to Titan, to fight a war that no one understood. Shin and Lin, your twin shadows, took your place and walked me home at night.

I've looked up a million times when the bell on the door pings, knowing that for sure it'll be you, with that messy mop of green hair and those weird eyes.

I look up one more time. _It won't be, it won't be, but Oh God if it is…_

It's only some kids trying to steal girly mags and cigarettes, like you used to do. I grab the kids by the scruff of the neck, hauling them off the pavement. "I should call the cops on you little punks!" I snarl, remembering how you used to laugh, saying my bark was worse than my bite.

Then I look up into a face I've seen a thousand times in my dreams. A face in a faded photograph, one of three hopeful youngsters in a past life. A face I've kissed goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite…

__

"Oh, my dear God…"

~The End~


End file.
